


How It Changes

by 13letters



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Angst, F/M, JB Appreciation Week, Love, Post - A Dance With Dragons, The Story of Them, happy ending!
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-07
Updated: 2015-10-07
Packaged: 2018-04-25 05:33:46
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,936
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4948579
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/13letters/pseuds/13letters
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Her teeth are chattering so fiercely, all of Castle Black could likely hear her. She could wake dragons, that's what she could do.</p><p>"I can warm your lips if you need me to," he offers, snarky, ridiculous, truthful. </p><p>He can hear it now, the songs of the strong warrior maiden and the conniving prick.</p><p>"I'd write every one," he whispers to himself, as if he isn't sure he's saying or believing the words.</p><p>He decides he does.</p>
            </blockquote>





	How It Changes

She was always so stern. Stalwart. Strong. Stoic.

 

He hadn't missed her sharp inhale each time his horse nearly threw him several times a day, as if he annoyed her, as if his.. well, physical impairment inconvenienced her, but he hadn't missed the side glances she occasionally threw him either, and he wanted to laugh at how ludicrous the image of her diving from her steed to save him lest he fall was.

It's hilarious until he's in her arms since his rotting skin, the fever that welcomes in his delirium, the shade of his skin pallor paler and deader each day with weakness could kill him if he couldn't survive his horse throwing him.

There was a softness around her eyes when he did see her looking at him with that inkling of concern, but he'd pretend for her sake that he didn't notice any fear souring her expression. It's what they do.

 

He cracks a joke at his expense instead of hers one day, but oh, how severely she disregards his self-depreciating, clever insults with a fight she never takes arms up for herself.

 

The skin ravaged at his right hand's stump is a ghastly color; she doesn't mention the stink if he won't, but believe it, his mind is elsewhere with golden sheens of hair flowing around his face delicately, twining with his as he tumbles with his other half on crimson and golden sheets.

 

Brienne, though, was stoic. Stern. Strong. Stalwart. Sensitive, yet he isn't thinking any of those when he says the words before he can snatch them back with his good hand and his vow to not think about it.

"Call her by her name," and his voice was clearer than it had been in weeks. "Her name is Brienne."

He wonders when he stopped referring to her as _wench_. He wonders when he became _Jaime_ to her.

 

She's falling asleep, her head nodding so her chin meets her collarbones before she jerks back up just as suddenly, the blue in her eyes forcibly wide and awake and bright blue in the moonlight.

Her head lolls down again until she snaps it back, and he winces at the sound it makes when it collides with the tree trunk she rest on. But she was alright, always is, her knuckles white where she clutches her sword. She drifts to sleep again.

Her breaths always lingered with a certain slowness, a fullness, all deep and concentrated before gradually slowing to a rhythmic pattern, he knew, it meant she was asleep (alive, when he didn't think too hard about it, not that he was concerned when her breaths were so relaxed as she slept, she could have been dead for all he knew, all he cared), and it brought him his peace, too.

So slowly, since slumber couldn't take his mind when dark thoughts were, he rises from his bed of dirt and leaves until he stumbles to the tree she sleeps at. She doesn't stir, of course she doesn't, and he doesn't want to think of how long it had been since she really did last sleep soundly.

He doesn't want to think about the nights he felt almost feverish, pained, feeling five fingers and a palm where there was only nothing, where he could sometimes feel the reins that should be in his hand or the dirty hem of his frayed sleeve snagging the coarse hair at his arms, and he could almost feel it, so much that it was excruciating and burning and being _fucking chopped again_ , almost --

 

No. It didn't pain him as much now if he was being honest with himself, but the trick was that he never was, so no harm, right? Just a jape and a smirk at the wench when she asked him if he was sure he was alright for the eleventh time.

The one time he answered no, when he swallowed mud moments after swaying off his mount and falling because his vision was spotting and his breathing was rapid and he could barely see, he did see the strange look in her eyes when she watched him. She had made their camp after that, as small as it was, and he managed to fall asleep before too long, missing how stalwart his Lady Wench was as she took guard and only just pretended to be annoyed by his snoring.

He didn't snore.

Except he did, and he was, and his snoring wakes Brienne with another jolt of her head up, eyes wide and awake and bright blue in the moonlight and settling on his sleeping face pressed to the bark of the tree behind them, just inches away from her own face.

He looked so young in his slumber, so detached from the horrors of the world and the cruelty residing in it that he could have been the boy who wanted to be Ser Arthur Dayne. That he was that boy. That man, and she didn't have any trouble staying awake the rest of that long night; there was something worth protecting and cherishing and keeping alive next to her.

He needed the sleep more than she did, and her eyes were bright blue in the moonlight as she deftly watched their surroundings.

 

Brienne always snores. Like a bloody bear. It's ironic, gives him solace all the same.

 

"He isn't the man he once was," she says, or something close to it.

Her voice is plaintive, and if it were months ago, he -- well.

 _"Kiss me or curse me,"_ he had said, or something close to it.

He hadn't meant it; he almost never means the things he says, but days after that was when she had shaken him awake, alert and frightful and strong.

 _"Was it another dream?"_ She didn't call them nightmares. He had never thanked her. It wasn't on his mind just then. Cersei wasn't either.

 

 _"I dreamed of you,"_ and her astonishing blue eyes were never more truthful than they were then.

 

"Innocence."

 

She was always so stern. Stalwart. Strong. Stoic.

 

He doesn't say it, but the reign of Lady Stoneheart, whatever that is inhabiting the body of Lady Catelyn Stark, will turn this country into a graveyard. He's sure of it.

The sword or the noose, on Brienne's honor, and the Seven knew she was comprised of nothing but that. Some days she makes the warrior in him tired, but when he tells her when they're walking freely away from the Brotherhood, him and her and Podrick, it isn't an insult. "You're a better man than I am."

A better person.

They restart their search for the Stark girl the next morning. Or at least, they think it's morning. Winter is coming, and daylight warms them less and less.

 

"Jaime -- _Ser_ Jaime." She flusters. Only one side of her face is red. "I want to tell you --" She steels herself, quiets like she hadn't spoken at all, but he can't imagine the emotion touching her eyes bluer, red-rimmed.

"What is it?" He sounds so soft when he asks, patient and kind, because they've learned each other by now.

"Never mind it," she answers. She tries again to light their fire for the night, and Pod gives them a tired look.

 

"Sleep," he whispers instead, shifting so she lays half atop his armored lap with black furs and old russet pelts shielding them from the cold. "Rest," because the Seven knew she needed it, and there was something calming about being here at the edge of the world, beyond the Wall, with the Night's Watch and Jon Targaryen and Lady Stark of the Eyrie's armies fighting the dead risen.

"I can't," she says through clenched teeth. Too stubborn to listen to him, to die. It's just a cut through her arm, though. Maester Samwell will heal her soon.

He better.

He does.

 

 _"You can't love that beast,"_ Cersei had sneered.

He doesn't think he did until then.

 

"You're recovering, Brienne."

"I'm capable to fight," but she winces as she tries to sit up, and Pod follows Sansa out for some broth.

"Don't tempt me to have the Maester give you milk of the poppy," he warns, a wry smirk and a devilish gleam brightening his emerald eyes.

 

When she dreamed, she dreamed of him, and it was his name she'd cried for when she'd woken from the tonic and the fever the twice she'd taken to winter's illness.

 

When he'd caught it from her, though, he choked on his apologies in his fitful slumber.

 

He never had thought Brienne would have been the one to kill Lady Stoneheart; it wasn't their battle. He knew killing was a lonely path, and she knows now that it isn't glorious and full of banners and cheers.

"You're worth more than a song," he tells her. He can almost feel his right hand holding hers.

"So's Arya Stark," she chides him, always seeing through his insincere, earnest charm. Her smile tells him she knows he meant it, though, but there's mostly relief.

Lady Stoneheart only wanted her family, and if Needle was Eddard and Jon and Robb and Sansa and Bran and Rickon and Winterfell, she found it with a stab through her chest. _Mercy_ , they say the girl said.

 

They say Sandor Clegane is alive, too.

 

"Do you vow anything?" she wants to know. She sounds like he's trying her already.

"You aren't asking me about vows," like he's quick to his defend his frail spirit, because she's always been better than him. The Tarth sigil wasn't wrong to picture the sun.

He suddenly doesn't want to condemn her to a lion, but they don't get to choose who they love.

 

Her teeth are chattering so fiercely, all of Castle Black could likely hear her. She could wake dragons, that's what she could do.

"I can warm your lips if you need me to," he offers, snarky, ridiculous, truthful.

He can hear it now, the songs of the strong warrior maiden and the conniving prick.

"I'd write every one," he whispers to himself, as if he isn't sure he's saying or believing the words.

He decides he does.

 

 _"I love you,"_ she told him the first time, wide-eyed and afraid and earnest and gasping like she wanted to take the words back until he caught her hand.

He remembered their first true conversation, how she looked at him that evening in the baths, how much paler her blonde lashes were up close, how she actually giggled when he found the ticklish crook behind her knees, how she japed about keeping oaths and how bitter he was like the tea he preferred without milk and sugars, how just licking his lips would crimson her cheeks, how her face had shone when Sansa Stark ran into her brother Jon Snow's arms when they had taken her to the Wall and ended up here where he dreamed about pale golden-haired babies with bright blue eyes and the mother never too far from them.

 _"And I, you,"_ he whispered, in the fear of months ago, and it was the first time they'd kissed.

 

"This isn't like I thought it'd be," she admits one day. But oh, she doesn't look disappointed. Not at all.

She snores like a lion in his ear, and it's as comfortable as it was the first night years ago when she sucked in her teeth, sulked in her loathing of him as he snored, rest his head on her shoulder since she didn't trust him to keep watch for King Robb's men.

 

She still doesn't trust him to keep watch.


End file.
